it's my party

I love birthdays. I actually love celebrating other people’s birthdays more than my own (I hate to be the center of attention!) but with my birthday coming up this weekend, I can’t help but think about all the fun times and good memories from my birthdays past. I’ve been lucky enough (and loved enough!) to have had several surprise parties thrown in my honour and one particular one seems to stick out. While getting ready to go to my cottage for the weekend, my parents left to go fill the car with gas – a seemingly normal task when taking a two hour drive. However, when the trip to the gas station that is about seven houses away from my humble abode was taking them 15, 20, 30 minutes, I began to think something was wrong. I could not have been more surprised to answer a knock at the door several minutes later to find 10 of my closest friends all packed and ready to take a road trip with me to the cottage to celebrate my day of birth. How they got organized enough to actually pull it off, I will never know but it truly was a happy birthday!

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Unfortunately, for some more than others, with a birthday comes aging. I have to say that while there are many people who wish they didn’t have to watch their age creep upwards faster than they’d like, I’m not one of them. Sure, I like being young and I think time is always flying by too fast, but I actually find aging an exciting adventure. I remember seeing Dr. Phil’s wife, Robin, on TV one day talking about what it’s like for a woman to get older. She was saying that if she wasn’t 50 years old, she couldn’t be happily married for 30 years and she couldn't have 20 year old sons who she was so proud of. Not one to normally pay too much attention to talk shows, I found that her words really struck a cord. There are so many milestones in life to celebrate as we get older and without reaching these ages, we can’t celebrate long lasting love or watching our children grow up. I’ve only been married for several months but I look forward to getting old with my husband and that’s not something I can do if I don’t embrace my birthday every year. So as I prepare to celebrate getting older tomorrow, I am looking forward to all the adventures that will come with this new age bracket. Whether I’m turning 26, 36 or 46, I hope each age and each new day brings something exciting to look forward to.

What’s your favourite birthday memory? What do you like to do to celebrate?